ASU football’s Lyrik Rawls out for ‘near future’ as injuries start to pile up

TEMPE — Arizona State starting safety Lyrik Rawls will miss multiple weeks with an injury he suffered in a loss to Baylor on Saturday, head coach Kenny Dillingham said Wednesday.

Baylor receiver Louis Brown IV came down on Rawls’ right knee during a tackle early in the third quarter, and the safety immediately grabbed at the knee, staying down before limping off with the help of trainers.

Dillingham said Rawls will be out for the “near future.”

“We’ll get him back towards the end of the year,” Dillingham said.

Rawls becomes the fourth ASU defender to go down with a serious injury, following defensive lineman MyKeil Gardner, linebacker Zyrus Fiaseu and cornerback Nigel Pringle, who were all ruled out for the year.

Like Fiaseu, Rawls is a member of the Tillman Leadership Council. ASU has now lost three of the 10 designated team leaders to serious injuries, as tight end Khamari Anderson will also miss the rest of the season.

Rawls was the only newcomer that was on the initial council as voted by his teammates. Quarterbacks Cutter Boley and Mikey Keene plus linebacker Owen Long were voted onto the council while the team was at Camp T.

The safety has 11 tackles, one interception, two passes defensed and 0.5 tackles for loss in four games. He had the highest coverage grade among ASU defensive backs (79.6), per PFF.

He is in his sixth year after transferring from Kansas. He was previously at Oklahoma State for four seasons.

What does Lyrik Rawls’ injury mean for the ASU defense?

The ASU secondary is coming off a rough showing against Baylor in which the defense allowed 55 points and had numerous missed tackles.

“One bad game. That’s football,” Dillingham said. “Usually it doesn’t happen because there’s 19 different mistakes. It’s usually there’s one or two things people are confused about, and it happens five, six, seven, eight, nine times and throughout a game, those nine plays … turn into catastrophes, especially when they’re happening on third downs.

“I think the guys are stepping up to replace him, and they have a really good mindset.”

Rawls had far and away the team’s most snaps in the box safety role this season, where he got 106 of his 154 defensive snaps.

Senior Adrian “Boogie” Wilson has the next-most snaps there (78 of his 155 defensive snaps) and finished with four more box snaps than Rawls in Saturday’s contest (30 to 26).

Sophomore Jessiah McGrew, who has the most defensive snaps among ASU safeties (182), also saw 28 box snaps against Baylor having seen just 11 over the previous three games.

Freshman Zeth Thues, a Liberty High School product, could also see an increase in snaps. His 25 total snaps (three of five defensive snaps coming in the box) were his most since the Week 1 blowout win against Morgan State.

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